A not so passionate reunion
by hobgoblin123
Summary: Sequel to 'An unexpected Yuletide present': Gerald returns from his expedition across Novatlantis with a rather peculiar souvenir...


**A not really passionate reunion**

A/N: Maybe I should give a warning for this story, but it would rather ruin the point. So please read at your own risk and drop out in case you should start feeling squicky. No character death, violence or explicit slash for a change. Just lots of bickering and some fluffy moments. And yes, I know that one of my works in progress has a similar story line (Ciani and Karril being let in on Gerald's secrets while Damien is absolutely clueless). But as usual I'm a slave of my plot bunnies, and this one just begged to be written.

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_"I close my eyes, thinking that there is nothing like an embrace after an absence, nothing like fitting my face into the curve of his shoulder and filling my lungs with the scent of him." Jodi Picoult, Keeping Faith_

_**Faraday, July 1252**_

A human man and a Iezu were staring at the bunk in Hawthorne's cabin, deeply in thought. "How do you think Damien will take the news, Gerald?" the God of Pleasure asked at long last. "Maybe you should have let me tell him long ago. Unless I'm very much mistaken, humans usually aren't particularly fond of this kind of surprises."

"Don't get on my nerves, Karril. Vryce is a pragmatist. Of course he will rant and rave and call me a vulking bastard, but in all likelihood he will resign himself to the facts eventually. Should he prove me wrong..." the adept shrugged. "It won't be the end of the world. Money is not an object, as you very well know, and I don't have to depend on his generosity. And now excuse me. Captain Rozca and I have to meet the customs authorities.

When his companion was gone, the Iezu very nearly succumbed to the temptation of mimicking human behaviour by tearing his illusory shock of hair. Maybe Gerald could fool the world with his feigned nonchalance. But prowling through his mind, Karril had found ample evidence that he was worried to the core. And not without a reason. If his friends were right and there truly was a One God on Erna, presumably only he knew how the former priest of his faith would react to his partner's latest prank. Not to mention the fact that the adept wasn't exactly returning from his expedition a free agent. But one had to be grateful for small mercies. Sharing his misgivings, Ciani had agreed on acting what Hawthorne called their 'one-woman backup troop', and the Iezu was deeply grateful for her support. Heaving a heartfelt sigh, he pulled the coverlet a little bit higher and braced himself for the things to come.

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Giddy with excitement, Damien Kilcannon Vryce watched as the proud galleon 'Mistress of the Seas' was docking at the pier. It was a beautiful midsummer day, the sky a deep azure blue dotted with an occasional fair-weather cloud and their central star so unlike the yellow Earth sun smiling down on them, reflecting his high spirits. He hadn't seen his lover for twenty eight months now, a time span which had felt like a small eternity. A true friend, the God of Pleasure had passed oral messages across Novatlantis every now and then. But hearing that Gerald was fine wasn't quite the same as holding him in his arms and kissing him senseless, something he verily intended to do as soon as the adept had disembarked.

Unfortunately, things hadn't gone as they had planned on that memorable Yule Eve roundabout two and a half years ago. After the turning of the year, the weather had become so bad for weeks on end that leaving port would have been tantamount to suicide. But snuggling against his lover in the big bed Gerald had splashed out on, with the flames flickering merrily in the fireplace, he hadn't minded the raindrops drumming on the roof and the gales of wind howling around the house like the souls of the condemned. Then, at the end of January, the adept had been the first one to fall ill. Thankfully, it hadn't been anything dramatic. Just a queasy stomach, accompanied by bouts of vertigo and a general listlessness. Somewhat worried nonetheless, Damien had kept a close eye on him. But before he had been able to get to the bottom of things, he had contracted the disease as well. And in his case, the nasty bug had made a good job of it. For several weeks, he had been sick as a dog, suffering from diarrhoea with vomiting which had kept him confined to the bathroom for the better part of the day. In his state, there hadn't been the ghost of a chance of accompanying the expedition across Novatlantis when the weather had finally cleared up at the beginning of March. Vulking hell, he hadn't even been able to see Gerald off when the 'Mistress' had hoisted the sails, and it was but a small consolation that his health had begun to improve rapidly from then on.

"Damien!" Recognizing this voice among thousands, Vryce whirled round and grinned. Since the loremaster had given birth to her daughter Anthea thirteen months ago, they weren't seeing each other that frequently anymore. But there was no denying that motherhood suited Ciani Gastrell nee Faraday very well. Her dark eyes sparkling with elation, his old flame clapped him on the shoulder. "How are you, my friend?" she giggled mischievously. "Besides yourself with joy at the prospect to embosom your sweetheart?"

"And so he goddamn should be," another well-known organ joined in, and Damien's grin broadened. Absorbed in greeting Ciani, he had missed that the customs authorities had left the vessel and the first passengers were coming ashore. Looking over his shoulder, his eyes fell on a beaming Captain Rozca. "Sorry for making use of the name of the Lord, Reverend. 'Tis not for an evil purpose. But his Lordship gave us quite a fright on the outward trip, and for a while I feared that I would have to bring you bad tidings. But I've never met anybody tougher." The hard boiled mariner winked at him. "With regard to poor Rasya, may her soul rest in peace, I thought your interests would lie more on the conventional side. But obviously I was wrong. And before I forget it, let me congratulate you to..."

Ciani went into a coughing fit all of a sudden, and Rozca trailed off with a rather sheepish expression on his weathered features. "Well, yes," he stammered. "An old salt like me should know when to keep his bloody trap shut. Have to be off now, anyway. The duties of a captain, you know." And with these words he fled their company, cleaving a way through the crowd as if the Unnamed were after him. Somewhat puzzled, Damien frowned, but the whole world faded into nonexistence as a very familiar figure appeared on top of the gangway.

Slender as a willow and his black braid hanging down all the way to his waist, Gerald looked exactly as he had on the day they had been forced to say good-bye. With one notable exception. On his arm, hiding his face against the adept's neck, a small child had found his place.

Damien was still gaping in baffled incomprehension when Hawthorne said something that caused the infant to raise his head, gazing right into his direction. Thunderstruck, the warrior knight very nearly forgot how to breathe. Maybe his eyes were failing him, or he had gone mad with pleasant anticipation. But with his grey irises, wavy, light brown hair and delicately chiselled features the boy was the spitting image of the Neocount of Merentha. Even from afar, there was no denying that the child was a Tarrant, and if Gerald hadn't detected a long lost side line of his family across Novatlantis, that left only one conclusion. The damned bastard had found himself a wife and had lost no time in siring a child! Evidently, this answered the question whether the adept had just altered his outward appearance on that fateful day at the Keep or had transformed his genes accordingly once and for all. But for the time being, Vryce couldn't be less interested in genetics.

His eyesight blurring, he turned away, but the loremaster moved like lightning and blocked his pathway to escape. "Damien, don't go," she said urgently. "You owe him a chance to explain at the very least."

"Cee, I... I don't think I can face... Merciful God in heaven, how could the bastard _do_ this to me?" he whispered dejectedly.

A hint of impatience passed across her ageless features. "You'd rather not jump to conclusions. Can't you count? The little one is about two years old. That means he was born on board of the 'Empress', doesn't it? And now get you brain going, remember that Gerald's not a normal man but an adept and count two and two together, for the Gods' sake!"

The warrior knight blinked. Of course Hawthorne was an adept. But what this obviousness had to do with his betrayal or why Ciani was shooting him a withering glance which could have frozen the hot springs near Ganji-on-the-Cliffs completely escaped him so far.

"Dada?" The feel of a small hand tugging at his trousers brought him back to the here and now with a start. Focussing on the woman glowering at him as if he had just committed the biggest crime in living memory, he had missed that Hawthorne had already descended the gangway and was standing a mere five feet away, his comely features a mask as impenetrable as in his heydays as the Hunter. But the tiny face peeking up at him was scrunched up in a droll expression of curiosity.

'_Dada_?' What the hell...? Vryce was still trying to digest this utterly strange error of judgement when Gerald stepped closer and bent down. "A big boy like you shouldn't use baby talk, Damien," he rebuked the toddler with amazing gentleness. "Father, or daddy if you like, are more appropriate terms. And now don't pout and play with the lady Ciani and your uncle Karril. I'll be with you again in a minute."

Flabbergasted, Damien senior didn't even flinch when the Iezu materialized out of the blue right on cue. As soon as their friends had tactfully withdrawn a few steps, Hawthorne straightened in a motion so graceful that it sent a tremor of longing throughout his entire body and faced him without the slightest sign of joy at seeing him again. "Vryce."

It wasn't so much a greeting rather than a mere acknowledgement of his presence and certainly not the passionate reunion he had been dreaming about since the God of Pleasure had informed him that the expedition was on its way home. Gerald's face was still perfectly composed and his eyes dark, bottomless pools which barred any way to his soul. But knowing him so well, the former priest didn't fail to register the tension in his shoulders and that a muscle in his delicate jawline twitched ever so slightly. For whatever reason, apparently deep down in his heart the adept didn't feel more comfortable with the situation than he himself.

Somewhat heartened by this realization, Vryce decided to take the bull by the horns. "Gerald, I don't quite understand what's going on here," he blurted out. "On the night before you left, I promised to wait for you, and now you return from your vulking pleasure trip with a child in tow. A child who has to be a descendant of... of someone I won't mention and calls me 'Dada'. What am I supposed to make of it?"

"I'd very much appreciate if you could let my son get away with expressing himself in a somewhat inadequate manner for now. As you might be able to imagine, I don't encourage this absolute nonsense. But since he was the only child on board, both crew members and passengers unfortunately spoiled him rotten on the voyage back."

Being hit fair and square on the nose couldn't have been more painful. There was no denying that in those few weeks anteceding the adept's departure Gerald had never ever uttered the famous four-letter-word. In fact, true to his cool, aloof self he hadn't deigned to hold forth about his emotions at all. But to hear him casually admitting the unthinkable as if they were just two chance acquaintances was more than the warrior knight could bear. "I'm not talking about _your son's_ choice of words, you incorrigible nitpicker," he thundered in a flaring temper. "Aside from the undeniable fact that I'm nowhere near to being his father, I couldn't care less about his babbling. Complain to the boy's mother if you are so concerned about it."

"But there is no mother, Vryce. At least not in the traditional sense of the word."

Feeling a major headache brewing, Damien rubbed his aching temples. This didn't make any sense. Even in the wake of the taming of the fae Erna was still a weird planet with laws of nature sometimes posing a riddle to the human colonists. But be that as it may, babies simply weren't growing on trees. Nor were they being delivered by the nustork, not even to please vulking Gerald Tarrant aka Hawthorne. In response to his line of thought, a mental whisper sounding suspiciously like 'trust me that I would have preferred both options to the more conventional method' seemed to infiltrate his keyed up mind, accompanied by a faint echo of amusement which certainly wasn't his own. But in his agitated state, he didn't pay much attention to it.

At least until he thought of the thick stack of not paper he had found on his writing table one rainy day in February twenty-nine months ago. The treatise had been written by none other than Athelney Griffiths, a well-renowned biology professor at Jaggonath University. But back then the idea that male adepts could theoretically bear children had seemed a bit over the top. To be honest, Damien had wondered whether the old fellow had finally lost his marbles. But now, remembering waking up from what he had written off as a mere bad dream the following late summer, his pillow drenched in tears and his ears still ringing with Gerald's blood-curdling cries of pain, the concept suddenly didn't seem so far fetched after all. Even Ciani's ominous hints and Captain Rozca's well-meant but rather untimely congratulations fit in much too well for his peace of mind.

The cold sweat breaking out on his brow, the warrior knight flopped down onto the next available bollard and buried his face in his hands. Holy shit, what a damned fool he had been! He should have known at once that the former Hunter never did anything without a reason. Very likely, Hawthorne had placed the paper where his clueless partner had been bound to find it on purpose. But when he hadn't reacted to what he had deemed either a bad joke or the excesses of an ageing brain, the adept had sallied forth into the unknown without informing him about his condition. And had only pulled through by the grace of God. In retrospect, Rozca's words left no doubt that it had been a close call. Envisaging Gerald going through this ordeal on a vulking ship in the middle of nowhere without proper medical aid or, even worse, his lifeless body being committed to the fathomless abysses of Novatlantis, wasn't a scrap less terrifying than the ghastly nightmares the Lord of the Forest had devised for his benefit.

Lost in his deliberations, he very nearly jumped out of his skin when bronzed fingers were closing around his wrist, feeling his pulse. "You're as pale as a ghost," Hawthorne stated matter-of-factly. "Are you alright?"

The warrior knight was sorely tempted to break out in a fit of hysterical laughter at this utterly absurd inquiry. No, he wasn't alright, most definitely not. Slowly, wearily, he shook his throbbing head. "Never mind my physical well-being, Gerald. There are more urgent matters at hand now," he replied with enforced calm. "I don't have the faintest idea how it could be biologically possible, but this boy, Damien... Are you his... his..."

"_Carrier_ might be the term you're looking for, Vryce. Yes, I am. And to anticipate your next question: you are indeed his father. There's no doubt about it. You don't have to feel obliged to stand by your promise out of a misplaced sense of duty, though. I'm by no means a fair damsel you've gotten into trouble."

Despite his best intentions, Damien felt his hackles rising once again. "Cut the crap, Gerald! I've never said that I would walk out on you. But there's so much I still don't understand. Why the heck didn't you tell me what was going on? Attributing your symptoms to pregnancy-related problems was somewhat difficult with regard to your gender. And when I was taken sick as well, I assumed I had contracted a nasty germ from you. There was no chance in hell that I could draw the right conclusions."

"You weren't sick, Vryce. Or more precisely, you caught neither a virus nor a bacterial infection." For the first time that day, Hawthorne looked distinctly uncomfortable. "You have to understand that, under the given circumstances, I couldn't allow you to accompany us on our journey. Well aware that you wouldn't be open to argument, I had to fall back on less subtle means."

Swallowing convulsively, the adept averted his face and stared fixedly off into the distance. "In Gerald Tarrant's youth, Silthair Leaf used to be quite common in the North, but now it's near extinct except in certain areas close to Merentha," he went on, his words a mere whisper almost drowned in the hustle and bustle all around them. "It's a very peculiar species of the Ernan flora. An extract of its roots reduces fever, while chewing the dried leaves is supposed to improve a man's sexual stamina. Its crushed seeds, on the other hand, dissolve easily in cold and warm liquids, are absolutely tasteless and cause severe vomiting and diarrhea without leaving permanent damage. As soon as one stops administering the drug, its effect rapidly wears off, as you've experienced firsthand."

For a while, the warrior knight just goggled at Hawthorne, completely dumbfounded. But when the true meaning behind the seemingly superfluous lecture on a rare plant had finally sunk in, he was on his feet and at his lover's throat in a blink. "You POISONED me?" he roared like a thoroughly pissed off predatory beast without giving a damn for the multitude of heads turning towards them and their mutual friends edging warily closer. "Have you lost your mind, you vulking son of a bitch?"

"Don't be an idiot, Vryce. If I had truly wanted to poison you, you would be lying in your grave now," the adept shot back without missing a beat. "By the way, I'd rather you kept your temper under control and watched your loose tongue. At present, you aren't exactly what I'd call a shining example for our offspring."

Disconcertingly close to losing it completely, Damien started to count from fifty backwards, but it was no use. Not in the least. Still shaking with rage, he forced himself to let go of his nemesis and headed for his long-serving mare he had tethered in close vicinity to the toll house without paying any heed whatsoever to Ciani's and Karril's attempts at pouring oil on troubled waters. But then his gaze locked on the small child at their side, and he stopped dead in his tracks. Evidently scared to death by the commotion, Damien junior was weeping inconsolably, his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his baby face smeared with tears. At this pitiful sight, Vryce's anger cooled down a notch or two. Whatever his thrice damned _carrier_ had done wasn't the boy's fault. Like his biological father, he was just the innocent victim of the machinations of an ancient soul which didn't possess a shred of compassion. _One more in a long row_, he thought grimly, but decided to leave it at that for the time being. The last word definitely hadn't been spoken about Gerald's outrageous breach of trust. But for now, relieving their son's misery had to take top priority.

Pushing down his resentment with all his might, he went down on one knee and stroked the infant's hair. "Don't be afraid, lovely," Damien muttered soothingly. "Your other parent can be quite an ass sometimes, but I shouldn't have yelled at him." _At least not within your earshot_, he added in his mind, harbouring not a sliver of doubt that the unavoidable heated debate wouldn't take place without a fair amount of cursing and blustering on his part. "Stop crying now, and your dada will buy you the biggest piece of cake in town as soon as we're out of here."

"Vryce, I really don't approve of you baiting him with sweets. Too much sugar isn't healthy for..."

"Cut it out, Gerald! Just keep your smart-ass pearls of wisdom to yourself for once and get off my back. I've had quite enough of your lectures for one day. Let alone that you weren't that concerned about _my_ health, if you know what I mean."

Whether the acknowledgement of paternity or the simple prospect of a treat had worked wonders Damien very likely would never find out. But all that mattered to him was that the racking sobs finally subsided save an occasional hiccup. When the grey eyes opened and regarded him with renewed interest, he was once again shaken to the core by the eerie similarity between the boy and the Neocount of Merentha. It weren't just the perfectly proportioned bones, the shoulder-length, light brown hair blowing freely in the gentle breeze and the colour of the irises which made his heart skip a beat. Much more unsettling was the intelligence, the _hunger for knowledge_ shining forth in every fibre of his being despite the child's tender age.

But there were also traces of a certain warrior knight, maybe not this obvious but clearly visible nonetheless if one knew what to look for. The sturdy, compact body, the stubborn set of his jawline, all this spoke of genetic material other than Gerald Tarrant's. Feasting his eyes on the small miracle born from their union, Damien felt something cold and hard inside him melting. There was no denying that the adept had screwed things up on a large scale, and it might take some time to build confidence again. But one had to give him credit for not acting in bad faith. Realizing that their lustful romps hadn't remained without consequences, he had least tried to get the message across in a roundabout way. But when the broad hint had gone unnoticed, Hawthorne had evidently misjudged his lover's willingness - or lack thereof - to embrace the impending addition to the family. No wonder that the very incarnation of pride and self-reliance had chosen to sort out his problems with himself. And that his twisted mind had hatched a rather offbeat plan in the end.

Picturing Gerald laying awake at night, agonizing over a way out of this mess, a surge of tenderness welled up inside him. But before he could get up and make amends for his harsh words, the toddler held his little arms out towards the man who had given birth to him. "Mummy, up!"

His mandible miraculously relocated about navel level all at once, Damien somehow accomplished to suppress a paroxysm of laughter by a narrow margin, a brilliant feat very nearly sabotaged by Ciani's desperate coughing and spluttering in the background. While admitting helping him to the shits, the adept had looked unwontedly ill at ease. But it couldn't hold a candle to the mien of utter abashment he was sporting now. "I'm warning you, Vryce," the former Hunter forced out between gritted teeth, "Say a word I deem unfit, just one single word, and we're going to find out whether your swimming skills have improved since you almost drowned in the Rakhlands."

Hawthorne sounded as if he meant business, and the warrior knight knew better than to overtax his patience. But thankfully, there were other ways and means to convey one's feelings. Still grinning, he straightened, wrapped his arms around the adept's waist and kissed him square on his mouth. Holding him tight, a whiff of precious spice soap reached his nostrils, warring for attention with the omnipresent odours of salt and seaweed. But these quite mundane olfactory perceptions paled in comparison to being engulfed by Gerald's unique scent which went straight to his head like a strong, delicious wine.

And not just to his head. His nether regions reacting to the sensory input with frightening intensity, Vryce pulled his lover even closer to him and set out to deepen the hitherto chaste peck. At first, the adept didn't respond when his tongue tried to gain entrance. Although a shudder passed through his lithe frame and the pulse hammered visibly at the side of his neck, he stood stark and stiff like one of the numarble statues at the main entrance of Jaggonath's famous cathedral, not even breathing. But just as Damien was coming close to releasing him very much against his will, he melted into his embrace and returned the kiss with a low, wistful sigh.

Totally absorbed in the most pleasant occupation of plundering Gerald's mouth, he was but dimly aware that Lio Rozca had rejoined them as soon as the metaphorical storm had calmed down. "'Tis good to see that you've cleared up your...tiff," the mariner snickered. "Don't know whether you and His Lordship are aware of it, Father Vryce, but being a captain grants me certain privileges. Order is everything, I dare say, and the little lad here needs a proper family. So if you're interested, I could marry you right here on board of the 'Empress'."

Completely caught off guard for the second time that day, Damien very nearly choked on his breath. The man had to be kidding! After his initial rage had subsided, he couldn't blink the fact that he was still head over heels in love with Gerald in spite of his jarring idiosyncrasies. Maybe sane folks would call him a natural-born masochist, but neither their long-time separation nor the attack on his bowels had managed to reduce his affection for him in the least. Just the same, becoming a parent and a married man on the same day was stretching things a bit too much for his liking.

Daring an oblique glance at his lover, he was surprised to see that a faint smile was playing around his lips. "I think Captain Rozca has a point," the adept conceded, a spark of sardonic humour flaring up in the depths of his dark, mesmerizing eyes. "If you aren't altogether averse to it, I wouldn't mind following his advice. Just for the sake of good order, of course," he added dryly.

"Of course, beloved."

And so it came to pass that roundabout forty minutes after the warrior knight's somewhat feebly-voiced consent Damien Kilcannon Vryce and Gerald Hawthorne finally tied the knot on the quarterdeck of the 'Empress of the Seas'. It was a modest ceremony only accompanied by the sound of the waves and Ciani's half-stifled sobs. But seeing the colour rising in the comely face so dear to him when Rozca intonated "you may now kiss the bri..., ahem, groom, Reverend," Damien wouldn't have traded it for all the pomp and circumstance in the world. They doubtlessly still had a long way to go, last but not least contriving a way to make sure that another addition to the family wouldn't herald its arrival anytime soon. It wasn't that he didn't want more children. Not by a long shot. But for the time being, he was quite busy coming to terms with having to raise one. And with the strange sight of the hastily purchased golden wedding band which was gleaming on his left ring finger. But then Gerald graced him with one of the rare bewitching smiles reserved solely for him, and he couldn't think of anything but their bridal bed and the more delectable potential use of a certain northern plant flourishing where the Prophet of the Law had long ago composed the Holy Scriptures which were still constituting the backbone of their faith.

"Unless I've missed out on a very regrettable development during my absence, I'm quite confident you're going to do just fine without the aid of Silthair Leaf, Vryce," Hawthorne purred into his ear, eying him from under his long lashes in a manner which left no doubt that he intended to assure himself of the verisimilitude of his statement as soon as they were alone.

The mere thought of bedding the adept triggering a veritable flood wave of sex hormones, Damien felt inclined to agree with him. "'Just so', a contrary bastard I knew once would have said," he breathed, arousal coursing through every cell of his body like an unstoppable lava flow. Gerald raised an elegantly arched brow in a perfect display of mock indignation, but the light shining in his eyes told an altogether different story. The butterflies in his stomach doing somersaults, Vryce cupped his husband's face and, under the enthusiastic applause of the bystanders in the shape of their friends and the entire crew of the 'Empress', sealed their promise to have and to hold from this day forward with a kiss.

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